Also achievable at PLO4. But calling 1/2 bring in 5 1/2 isn’t exactly accurate since open is to 15. Probs better to compare 5/10 PLO to 5/10 NLH.

2000 hours at $80 an hour seems like it would have a much lower standard deviation / variance than 2000 hours at $10 an hour. Or am I mistaken?

Yes, it's a misconception that variance goes down as winrate goes up. Sometimes winrate can go up while variance goes up, for example if you've got a close +ev call, you could reduce your variance significantly at the cost of some ev. It only appears that variance goes down as winrate goes up because you see smaller / fewer downswings.

Ah, the lovely variance discussion .. Found this online ..

Poker variance – also known as poker downswings – is essentially a period bad luck. It's the difference between how much you expect to win based on your win rate over the long run, and the short term results.

I don't remember the thread but I'm not sure an exact definition of variance for poker was established .. or needs to be established. It comes down to how you are calculating and comparing your data points. I even think the above could be flawed a bit when they talk about 'win rate' as opposed to 'EV'.

The one thing I always interject when talking about poker stats is that I avoid 'match' games because I can go 4-1 in pots against the same player and still be broke by losing the last of the 5 hands. While variance is not purely a win-losses stat it's also not purely an EV or 'favorite/dawg' stat either .. which makes it very difficult to monitor for live cash Players.

IMO when a Player chooses to RIT a hand they are just creating 2 data points at half the value .. which affects the average and the mean values on a data graph.

Not really the proper thread to derail into this .. I think it's a consensus that PLO is at least 2x, if not 3x, the 'size' of a comparable NL game. Thus the required higher BI count needed in a Regs BR. GL

Not to be pedantic, but this is not variance as variance has a mathematical definition. This is a downswing, but I would agree that this is how a lot of people think when people discuss variance - but it's still wrong. Variance applies to upswings as well as downswing.

Yes, and no. You get two data points at half value, but ignoring card removal affects, the mean and average (which are the same exact thing) will be unaffected by this decision. What is affected by this decision is the variance attributed to that hand as we are playing 2 pots for half value with the same equity. If we ran all of the cards and just took our equity payout then this hand would have even less variance, but the mean result in all cases will be the same.